equivalent to our the, is a declinable word, making no small figure in grammar. It is varied by numbers, genders, and cases; so that it assumes more than twenty different forms, and becomes susceptible of six and thirty different ways of agreement. But this article in English is perfectly simple, being entirely destitute of grammatical modifications, and consequently incapable of any form of grammatical agreement or disagreement--a circumstance of which many of our grammarians seem to be ignorant; since they prescribe a rule, wherein they say, it "agrees," "may agree," or "must agree," with its noun. Nor has the indefinite article any variation of form, except the change from an to a, which has been made for the sake of brevity or euphony.
OBS. 11.--As an or a conveys the idea of unity, of course it applies to no other than nouns of the singular number. An eagle is one eagle, and the plural word eagles denotes more than one; but what could possibly be meant by "ans eagles," if such a phrase were invented? Harris very strangely says, "The Greeks have no article correspondent to an or a, but supply its place by a NEGATION of their article. And even in English, where the article a cannot be used, as in plurals, its force is exprest by the same NEGATION."--Harris's Hermes, p. 218. What a sample of grammar is this! Besides several minor faults, we have here a nonentity, a NEGATION of the Greek article, made to occupy a place in language, and to express force! The force of what? Of a plural an or a,! of such a word as ans or aes! The error of the first of these sentences, Dr. Blair has copied entire into his eighth lecture.
OBS. 12.--The following rules of agreement, though found in many English grammars, are not only objectionable with respect to the sense intended, but so badly written as to be scarcely intelligible in any sense: 1. "The article a or an agrees with nouns in the singular number only, individually, or collectively: as, A Christian, an infidel, a score, a thousand." 2. "The definite article the may agree with nouns in the singular AND[135] plural number: as, The garden, the houses, the stars."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 170; 12mo, 139; Fish's Murray, 98; a Teacher's, 45. For the purpose of preventing any erroneous construction of the articles, these rules are utterly useless; and for the purpose of syntactical parsing, or the grammatical resolution of this part of speech, they are awkward and inconvenient. The syntax of the articles may be much better expressed in this manner: "Articles relate to the nouns which they limit," for, in English, the bearing of the articles upon other words is properly that of simple relation, or dependence, according to the sense, and not that of agreement, not a similarity of distinctive modifications.
OBS. 13.--Among all the works of earlier grammarians, I have never yet found a book which taught correctly the application of the two forms of the indefinite article an or a. Murray, contrary to Johnson and Webster, considers a to be the original word, and an the euphonic derivative. He says: "A becomes an before a vowel, and before a silent h. But if the h be sounded, the a only is to be used."--Murray's Gram., p. 31. To this he adds, in a marginal note, "A instead of an is now used before words beginning with u long. It is used before one. An must be used before words WHERE the h is not silent, if the accent is on the second syllable; as, an heroic action, an historical account."--Ib. This explanation, clumsy as it is, in the whole conception; broken, prolix, deficient, and inaccurate as it is, both in style and doctrine; has been copied and copied from grammar to grammar, as if no one could possibly better it. Besides several other faults, it contains a palpable misuse of the article itself: "the h" which is specified in the second and fifth sentences, is the "silent h" of the first sentence; and this inaccurate specification gives us the two obvious solecisms of supposing, "if the [silent] h be sounded," and of locating "words WHERE the [silent] h is not silent!" In the word humour, and its derivatives, the h is silent, by all authority except Webster's; and yet these words require a and not an before them.
OBS. 14.--It is the sound only, that governs the form of the article, and not the letter itself; as, "Those which admit of the regular form, are marked with an R."--Murray's Gram., p. 101. "A heroic poem, written by Virgil."--Webster's Dict. "Every poem of the kind has no doubt a historical groundwork."--Philological Museum, Vol. i, p. 457. "A poet must be a naturalist and a historian."--Coleridge's Introduction, p. 111. Before h in an unaccented syllable, either form of the article may be used without offence to the ear; and either may be made to appear preferable to the other, by merely aspirating the letter in a greater or less degree. But as the h, though ever so feebly aspirated has something of a consonant sound, I incline to think the article in this case ought to conform to the general principle: as, "A historical introduction has, generally, a happy effect to rouse attention."-- Blair's Rhet., p. 311. "He who would write heroic poems, should make his whole life a heroic poem."--See Life of Schiller, p. 56. Within two lines of this quotation, the biographer speaks of "an heroic multitude!" The suppression of the sound of h being with Englishmen a very common fault in pronunciation, it is not desirable to increase the error, by using a form of the article which naturally leads to it. "How often do we hear an air metamorphosed into a hair, a hat into a gnat, and a hero into a Nero!"--Churchill's Gram., p. 205. Thus: "Neither of them had that bold and adventurous ambition which makes a conqueror an hero."--Bolingbroke, on History, p. 174.
OBS. 15.--Some later grammarians are still more faulty than Murray, in their rules for the application of an or a. Thus Sanborn: "The vowels are a, e, i, o, and u. An should be used before words beginning with any of these letters, or with a silent h."--Analytical Gram., p. 11. "An is used before words beginning with u long or with h not silent, when the accent is on the second.
